Dr. Zakir Naik seems to be the preferred word on buddhism in the islamic world. The following is from the comparative religion section of his website irf.net

-- "(i) There is suffering and misery in life. (ii) The cause of suffering and misery is desire.(iii) Suffering and misery can be removed by removing desire.(iv) Desire can be removed by following the Eight Fold Path. This Philosophy of Buddhism is self-contradictory or self-defeating because the third truth says ‘suffering and misery can be removed by removing desire’ and the fourth truth says that 'desire can be removed by following the Eight Fold Path'.Now, for any person to follow Buddhism he should first have the desire to follow the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path. The Third great Noble Truth says that desire should be removed. Once you remove desire, how can we follow the Fourth Noble truth i.e. follow the Eight Fold Path unless we have a desire to follow the Eight Fold Path. In short desire can only be removed by having a desire to follow the Eight Fold Path. If you do not follow the Eight Fold Path, desire cannot be removed. It is self contradicting as well as self-defeating to say that desire will only be removed by continuously having a desire."

I feel raped, infected, pregnant, robbed, beaten looked at wrong and tickled pink! This is a carefully crafted piece of evil that does not want to be correct.

An alternative (and I am not claiming it is a better one ) is to distinguish between desire/craving/greed and intention.I can intend to follow the path which leads to my workplace tomorrow morning but that isn't really the same thing as desiring to do so.

Never mind that this Dr Naik has wrongly grasped the difference between the skillful use of desire to tread the Path, and the freedom from craving for sensuality, becoming and non-becoming experienced by the Arahant. Because in my experience, you could explain this to him, and then he would just find fault with something else about the Path.

He's a Muslim talking about Buddhism, did you expect a glowing appraisal?

'Forgive him, for he knows not what the heck he's talking about'

Then the Blessed One, picking up a tiny bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monk, "There isn't even this much form...feeling...perception...fabrications...consciousness that is constant, lasting, eternal, not subject to change, that will stay just as it is as long as eternity." (SN 22.97)

That is a great Sutta. The issue comes up somewhat often at Dhamma centers where someone will state that all desire is bad, that even 'desire' for enlightenment is bad and having that desire will prevent it from happening. This is not true and when I get the chance I tell them about chanda, the wholesome desire. Ananda explains it much better in this Sutta.

lojong1 wrote:Dr. Zakir Naik seems to be the preferred word on buddhism in the islamic world. The following is from the comparative religion section of his website irf.net

-- "(i) There is suffering and misery in life. (ii) The cause of suffering and misery is desire.(iii) Suffering and misery can be removed by removing desire.(iv) Desire can be removed by following the Eight Fold Path. This Philosophy of Buddhism is self-contradictory or self-defeating because the third truth says ‘suffering and misery can be removed by removing desire’ and the fourth truth says that 'desire can be removed by following the Eight Fold Path'.Now, for any person to follow Buddhism he should first have the desire to follow the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path. The Third great Noble Truth says that desire should be removed. Once you remove desire, how can we follow the Fourth Noble truth i.e. follow the Eight Fold Path unless we have a desire to follow the Eight Fold Path. In short desire can only be removed by having a desire to follow the Eight Fold Path. If you do not follow the Eight Fold Path, desire cannot be removed. It is self contradicting as well as self-defeating to say that desire will only be removed by continuously having a desire."

I feel raped, infected, pregnant, robbed, beaten looked at wrong and tickled pink! This is a carefully crafted piece of evil that does not want to be correct.

Suggest ways to quickly challenge this argument.

“Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all” - Buddha

"He, the Blessed One, is indeed the Noble Lord, the Perfectly Enlightened One;He is impeccable in conduct and understanding, the Serene One, the Knower of the Worlds;He trains perfectly those who wish to be trained; he is Teacher of gods and men; he is Awake and Holy. "--------------------------------------------"The Dhamma is well-expounded by the Blessed One, Apparent here and now, timeless, encouraging investigation, Leading to liberation, to be experienced individually by the wise. "

Being a Muslim myself, I know 'modern' Muslim preachers and their techniques quite well. Dr Naik knows that he addresses mostly people with no knowledge of buddhism whatsoever. Oddly enough, Naik's audience is predominantly Muslim, so he preaches to converts as it were. His 'mission' may be to spread Islam and reach new audiences from other faiths, but what he actually does is mainly reinforce already well-established beliefs and faith among the Muslim community.

I'm glad that his remarks have led some of you to learn new things about your own spiritual system, but I really don't think he is worth getting annoyed about.

We are all complex paradoxes so it shouldn't be hard to work out a simple paradox.

http://www.dhammawheel.com/chat/Unfettered at last, a traveling monk, I pass the old Zen barrier. Mine is a traceless stream-and-cloud life, Of these mountains, which shall be my home?Manan (1591-1654)

To the OP, the writer sees this as a contradiction only because he does not understand it. It's not a contradiction at all.

The Buddha mentions in the Suttas somewhere that it is by craving that craving comes to cease. In essence one has to employ craving to finally come to the realization that rids one of craving. I believe this is one of the reasons that the Buddha refers to the teachings as a raft, that even the teachings must be abandoned when one reaches the other shore, thus how much more so should other things be abandoned.

People have been trying to slander the Dhamma since the Buddha first got some renown, but no person in my mind has ever levelled a true and valid criticism against it, criticisms of the true Dhamma only arise from misunderstanding or from malice. But the Dhamma will always stand up to a few knocks because as the Buddha states: It is free of patchwork.

mettaJack

"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta